Through the Eye of the Storm
by A Jack Frost Guy
Summary: [A Tale of Two side story] Every story can be told from different perspectives. Dive back into a tale where little is certain, through the eye of another party. (Note: Possibly irregular update schedule)
1. Prologue

Author's Notes (Before): Yo! It looks like I'm doing another fic, and NOT a one-shot!... still based off Seraph's To2 though. :P

Still, this one is going to re-cover some of the major events of To2 through the eyes of my OC Arashi, hence the title name. Currently, I've cut up the story into about... 3? 4 arcs? Of varying length, anyway. I'll be adding a few extra events as well...

Hopefully though, I can finish up this thing and not leave it dangling. But either way, just sit back an- oh, right! I might be constantly switching between 1st and 3rd person view, I'll be sure to state when the PoV changes. (note that 1st person will always be Arashi's PoV). Also, if there's any time skip, I'll make sure to keep you posted in the AN.

Now, sit back and enjoy!... I hope.

**Disclaimer: Seraph and I do not own GEB and the MH materials in this fic. And I do not own the original fic this spawned from.**

**Special thanks to Seraph and Ganganto for betaing this chapter, and subsequent ones.**

* * *

**_(1st person PoV)_**

"We're coming up on the Far East Branch, ETA: 5 minutes," the helicopter pilot said via speaker.

"Roger," I responded. A short sigh escaped my mouth, as I glanced at the landscape below me. How long has it been since I- right, 6 months. 6 months since I left what was once the nation of Japan for America to become One Who Devours Gods. A God Eater. And so had they... no, I gotta shove that particular memory to the back of my head. It's my first day back in Japan, and I'm getting new comrades to boot. Gotta give a good first impression, I can't let that get me down... not now, at least.

"Well, will you look at that?" The pilot suddenly spoke up, breaking my chain of thought, "it looks like the other transfers are arriving as well."

Wait, other transfers? Director Sanagram didn't tell me anything about that when he told me about my transfer. I poked my head out the side of the helicopter to look around and sure enough, there was another helicopter in the distance. "Hey, where'd these guys come from?" I asked the pilot.

"You mean 'ladies'," the pilot laughed, "don't know too much 'bout them, but from what I've heard, they're from the Russia Branch. One of them's still a greenhorn, but the other's been on the field for about a year now, and neither of them are to be scoffed at."

Wow, I'm honestly kinda impressed. I mean, sure, Fenrir would call up just about anyone of any gender if they were found to be a match for any of the God Arcs, but I still take my hat off to anyone of the opposite gender who's able to hand the Aragami their rears. I mean, it's not everyday you see a girl carrying a giant biological weapon around to hoist malevolent monsters by their own petard, right?

... statement redacted. You do in these days. Still, I'd bet there're some girls who could totally outdo guys in some area...

* * *

(Later!)

... I totally jinxed it.

Right now, I'm in the God Arc storage area, with the two Russian transfers and one really scary force of nature waiting to blow up that is Tsubaki Amamiya, aka my new advisor. 'Advisor', yeah, right. It's not that I disrespect the chain of command or anything, but with how scary my new superior can be, I'd thought she'd be in a higher position. That she gave off the feeling she could send me flying six ways to Sunday didn't really help either, especially since her taped-up black armlet indicates she was a God Eater at some point.

As for the other two... hmm, the girl with the rather... erm, never mind, the one in red and black attire seems to be a tad arrogant. I wouldn't be surprised if she was the veteran the pilot mentioned, but I'll reserve my opinion on that. Chances are, it's one of those 'better than thou' mind-sets that some rookies have at times. The more conservatively-dressed girl on the other hand seems somewhat... nervous, I suppose? Not surprising, she was just taken out of her homeland and placed in a completely foreign environment. I know I was almost like that when I first landed in America.

Anyway, it looks like it's time to meet my other new comrades; that gate's opening up.

* * *

So what is my impression of my new unit?

2 possible jokers, 2 rather serious looking guys, and 2 somewhere-in-between people, I suppose. All in all, I think it'll be fine. Heck, one of the possible jokers actually walked over to us almost unnoticed. Either he's better than he looks, got lucky, everyone's too focused on us or some of my new unit members have rather sucky detection skills.

Considering our profession, I'm inclined to think the 'joker' is better than he looks. Us catching everyone's attention might have something to do with it though.

"I have a few introductions to make," Tsubaki started, "these three are New-Type God Eaters, and they will be joining our ranks today." With that, she stepped back, allowing us to introduce ourselves. Wait, she said she's introducing us, right? So why- argh, never mind. Better to do it personally, anyway.

The red-and-black clad girl stepped up first. "My name is Alisa Ilinichina Amiella. As of 1200 hours, I've been transferred from the Russia Branch. I look forward to working with you." My god, that name was a mouthful. At least she seems to have lost some of that air of arrogance.

"Hey, girls are more than welcome here anytime!"

That be possible joker number 2. And I think that's the wrong thing to say here...

"I'm surprised you've survived so long around here with that frivolous attitude."

Yup. Got burned. Better luck next time, pal.

Before the burn evolved into a fire though, the other girl stepped forward. "My name is Sera Rozonov, and I'm also from the Russia Branch. It's nice to meet you all, and I look forward to working with you in the future."

Nice, she managed to prevent what could have turned into a fallout and kept Alisa and possible joker number 2 quiet by taking the initiative. Guess she's not as timid as she looked earlier.

One of the guys I pegged as a 'serious guy' chuckled, saying, "welcome to the team, the leader should be somewhere around here, but make yourself at home." Looks like I was wrong about the guy too.

... wait, did the unnoticed 'joker' just smirk? Yikes, that's my new lead? I give these guys too little credit. I wouldn't be surprised if I misjudged just about everyone else at this rate... oh, right. My turn. No turning back now...

"I'm Arashi Muramasa, straight here from the American Branch, and I can't wait to get started here!"

* * *

AN (after): God, 1st person is hard. Or is it just writing itself? The 1st person thing was (somewhat) fun though, since I got to dissect Arashi's thought processes. Anyway, please review and all that shtick. It makes me a happy man (or sad, if it's a flame).


	2. Moon in the Welkin, Revisited

AN (Before): Back with another chapter!

Anyway, I think I've come to a conclusion. From now on, I'll generally be doing this fic in 3rd person view throughout (unless I think it'll be more effective in 1st person). It just feels easier for me, somehow.

Anyway, take note that this chapter takes place after the events of the original Chp 9: New Recruits, Old Wounds, and during Chp 10: Crossed Paths, Divided Tales. Hopefully, I make it far enough to start showing off the original content... also, to both Seraph and Ganganto, I hope your OCs are all in character in the parts where I didn't have the original lines to fall back on.

With that, on to the fic, and the disclaimer's in Chp 1.

* * *

**_(3rd person PoV)_**

For the next couple of days after his first mission, Arashi had felt pretty darn uncomfortable, not that he showed it much. With the revelation of Kinaia's insanity and possible infection, he'd been doing his hardest not to even so much as look at her. It wasn't anything personal against her, and he honestly felt bad that she wasn't quite the confident girl he once saw, but whenever he looked at her now, unwanted memories of the time Aragami X took the lives of his childhood friends would invade his mind. And reliving those memories felt like an invisible needle trying to pierce his heart when he thought about it too much, and he had little idea how he ought to proceed.

Sera on the other hand spent plenty of time trying to make her feel better. Every now and then, he notice her glance at him briefly, as if she wanted to say something, but would ultimately withhold her thoughts. _"Wonder what she was trying to bring up..."_ he inwardly mused. He quickly shook that thought out of his head, though. Right now, like it or not, he was currently on a mission.

It had been earlier in the day that Director Schicksal had called him, Sera and Kinaia to his office for a special mission - to search the City of Mercy, or at least the area around it for an unknown Aragami that had been spotted recently. He and Sera didn't really want to go, mainly because of their shifts with the 2nd Defence Unit, but then Kinaia went ahead and accepted it in their place anyway. Naturally, that kind of left him steaming - they didn't even have the slightest clue of what they were up against, discarding that one person who said it looked like a scorpion, and while Kinaia did have a point in that more innocents may die to it the later they were to take action, it didn't mean he liked it.

Nonetheless, there they were now, looking for any traces of the mystery Aragami in the City of Mercy. Examining the downtown area, the only major sign that anything had been there were the bits and pieces of another Aragami - Vajra, he belatedly noted - but nothing else yet.

"Hey, you guys found anything?" He asked his fellow teammates as he stood up from inspecting a Vajra's cape fragment.

"No, sorry," Sera responded from her position a few meters away to his left, scrutinising a chipped-off piece of the Vajra's front leg guard.

_"Drats..."_ He thought to himself, _"we've been at this for about an hour now. This unknown is really elusive..."_

"Got something!" Kinaia called out further behind him, beckoning them closer with one hand, the other holding her God Arc over her shoulder.

"Finally!" Arashi exclaimed as he strode over, Sera following suit as well, "it's about time something showed up!"

Sera briefly nodded, asking, "what have you found?"

Kinaia shrugged. "Some kind of crystal. Odd, it's slowly growing larger..." she said.

Upon her mentioning this, Arashi briefly froze in his tracks. _"Growing crystal? No... no, it can't be!"_ He thought to himself, now hastening his pace as he strode over to see the crystal, silently praying that it was not what he thought it was. Unfortunately for him, it was clear to him that the world in general was just rubbing it in his face as he stared at the bluish-purple crystal before him, currently about the size of a palm-sized stone and gradually growing in size.

As the unwanted memories started to flood his mind again, he heard Kinaia say, "it looks like some type of new ore. Perhaps we ought to take it back to the Den?"

_"What? No! That's no simple ore!" _He mentally screamed. Before he could actually vocalise that thought, Sera put in her own two cents. "That... might be a good idea. Maybe it could be repurposed for something?"

"No!" Arashi managed to snap. "We are NOT taking that crystal!"

"What? But-"

"No buts!" He insisted, not caring who it was who spoke up as he observed a gradually growing trail of the crystals. "We are not taking these darn things, and that's that! Change of plans, we follow the trail!" And with that, he promptly walked off, leaving the two girls little choice but to follow him.

* * *

The trail had led the group to the old abandoned church. Arashi silently observed his squad mates from the corner of his eye, trying to access their current state. Kinaia was pretty much peeved, most probably due to his rather rude outburst earlier. Sera on the other hand had glanced at him once or twice with the same hesitant expression he sometimes saw her with the past couple of days, as well as ... concern? It looked like it.

His musings were cut short when they turned around a corner to see Alisa, Kama, Kota, Lindow, Sakuya and Soma, all of them battle-ready.

"Nine God Eaters for a single mission? Sounds a bit overkill, doesn't it?" Kama asked them, confusion written all over his face.

"You fought the Vajra?" Kinaia said, "we were sent here to search for the unknown Aragami sighted earlier today. You know, the scorpion one?"

Kama nodded, understanding as Lindow announced, "since we're all here, we'd better stick together. Kama, Alisa, Kinaia, you're with me. Everyone else, stay outside and watch our backs."

"Wait," Arashi spoke up, just as the group was about to head inward. _"If it's really THAT Aragami..."_ He silently thought, "be careful in there. All of you." He continued, making sure to look directly at Kinaia to emphasize the importance of her need to be careful. Unsurprisingly, Kinaia scowled and turned around. "Are we going in, or what?" she irately snapped at the others.

_"Sorry, but it was necessary," _Arashi suppressed a grimace as Kama and the others entered the church ruins as he remembered the partially infectious property of THAT Aragami's crystals. _"Add the fact that she's already on the-"_

Any further thoughts were cut off as a distinctively feminine scream - no doubt Kinaia's, to his horror - was heard.

"Stay outside, we can handle this!" Lindow yelled as he rushed in, Alisa already ahead of him and Kama following close behind.

**_"Help them, they can't take on that thing!" _**A small part of him cried out inside his mind.

**_"The lead himself said to stay back, so stay back," _**another voice whispered.

**_"That's insane! They could be in trouble right now!"_** The first voice retorted.

**_"But you don't really know what's in there. For all you know, it really is something they can handle," _**the second voice similarly said.

_**"Screw that, help them!"**_

_**"Stay here."**_

_**"Help them!"**_

_**"Stay here!"**_

Before Arashi could do anything else however, an ear-piercing scream cut off his thoughts. The sight of Alisa shooting the ceiling for whatever reason and causing the entrance to be sealed off by debris sealed the deal.

**_"Told you!/... yeah, help them."_**

"Damn it!" He hissed, cursing the situation they were now in. "Sera! We're headed behind to cut whatever bugger they ran into off!" He called out, already breaking into a sprint. Sera blinked for a moment, stunned by what had just transpired, before she successfully regained her bearings and following suit.

* * *

Getting outside and behind the church didn't take that long in reality, but what happened afterward certainly felt like it. The moment Arashi and Sera had gotten to the rear of the church, a certain Aragami that Arashi could never forget leapt out the hole.

A scorpion with a dark purple, almost black carapace, with a few tiny bits of yellow hair growing out of its legs. Four glowing red eyes. Tri-pronged pincers (though, he belatedly noticed one of the prongs were broken). Most notable of all, the bluish-purple crystals coating the base of its claws, its ridged back, and the crystal geode that replaced what would have been a stinger at the end of its thick tail. As it landed in what seemed like slow motion to him, Arashi's eyes blazed in anger. While the yellow hairs weren't there before, this Aragami was, without a doubt, the one that killed his parents and his friends. The Aragami that had wrecked his life, twice.

Snapping out of his brief trance, he promptly snapped his God Arc into its gun form, and opened fire at Aragami X, or 'Scorpion' as he simply called it, alongside Sera. However, most of the shots were either deflected by its unbelievably tough carapace, the rest barely even phasing it as they pursued the perpetrator.

Eventually, the Scorpion managed to escape, in part thanks to its own speed and in part due to exhaustion setting in for the duo. Arashi barely registered Sera leaning against a nearby wall as she started crying while he underwent his own breakdown, dropping to his knees and repeatedly punching the ground.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit..." he repeated over and over again. _"It's partially my fault," _he bitterly thought, self-loathing. _"Because of my indecisiveness, the Scorpion took the lives of another two comrades. Another two to the tally..." _

He didn't have much more time to lament however, as two unidentified Aragami, which looked like light-blue and white Vajras with a humanoid face leapt down from above and in front of them. _"Lament later," _he grimly thought, _"Right now, I can't let anyone else die!" _"C'mon, we have to get back to the others!" he cried out as he grabbed Sera's wrist. Through the unshed tears, he could a blazing anger in her eyes as she nodded.

The events that transpired afterward felt mostly like a blur to Arashi, the anger burning within him making his perception foggier than it usually was. It seemed repetitive, for a while. Hack away at the Vajra lookalike, follow the occasional order (from who, he didn't really register), keep moving, stay alive, rinse and repeat. By the time he fully came to his senses, the Vajra relatives had moved on to other, easier prey. _"Damn it all..."_ he mentally lamented, venting some of his frustration by punching a wall every so often as the war torn squad slowly returned to the Den._ "How the hell am I supposed to uphold that vow we made, if I can't even keep my own comrades safe? How, Mara? Orion? Aisuru?"_

* * *

AN (after): Wow, I really started getting lax toward the end of typing this chapter. I mean, I knew more or less what to put, but yeah.

Oh, and for those familiar with our scorpion pal over here, you may be wondering why it's somehow got bits of yellow hair. The answer is that it's starting to transition into its HC version, if you understand that.

Do review, and look out for the next chapter. I may add the first bit of original content (or maybe a whole lot of it) into Chp 3!


	3. Encounter

AN (Before): Back with Chp 3, and Merry Christmas world! Special thanks to Seraph and patty1234554321 for betaing this one!

To give the current point in time, this chapter glosses over part of Chp 11 to halfway through Chp 13. Now, let's begin! (and the disclaimer's in Chp 1!)

* * *

Arashi briefly sighed as he entered the elevator, headed to the lobby to hear Tsubaki's announcement. It has been around a month since the disastrous Moon in the Welkin mission that the 1st Unit got involved in, and during that span of time several rescue missions had been organised to find their missing members, Lindow and Kinaia. As of date however, not only have they not found even the slightest trace of the missing God Eaters, the rescue missions were dwindling in frequency, as did everyone else's hopes.

As for Arashi, while he had stopped beating himself up over his indecisiveness during that mission, every now and then he couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if he listened to his gut. Would Lindow and Kinaia still be with them? Would he have been trapped in the ruined church, and died trying to combat the Scorpion? Oftentimes he would cut off those lines of thought before he started to cause unnecessary emotional burden on himself; he had enough on his plate as it stood. Instead, he opted to see how his squad mates were faring. As a whole, most of them were still pretty scarred - not that he could blame them - but were otherwise on the road to recovery.

Kota, despite retaining a portion of his joker side, was actually using the incident as a driving force to ensure that such a thing never happened again. When Arashi had spotted him training a couple of days back, he'd had a rather pleasant surprise that Kota's combat abilities were far better than he'd last seen them, and had become far more observant. He even waved at him briefly before shooting at a dummy that Arashi hadn't noticed pop up. _"He might have a future as a team leader and a long range specialist, if he maintains this performance. Just need to see his leadership skills now..." _Arashi had thought, impressed.

Soma, the second person he'd labelled as a 'serious guy' back when he first arrived, didn't seem to be taking it too well compared to the others however. _"Wonder if there's a reason he always looks so darn gloomy to begin with? He's clearly not the stone-cold guy I thought he was if his attitude change means anything," _he silently mused.

Kama and Sakuya... there wasn't much to say except that they were recovering and combat-ready again. He sometimes spotted the former looking over them with an appraising look in his exposed eye, though._ "1000 Fenrir credits say he's doing the same thing I've been by observing everyone," _Arashi mentally laughed.

Sera had been a little silent for a while, but she was probably one of the fastest of their number to rebound from the death of her comrades, and was rather active in various missions, supporting the squad with healing bullets and ranged sniping. Having seen her performance in the firing range when he'd come by to test a couple of new bullets, he almost felt sorry for the Aragami she took fire at on the field - she'd either strike the targets on the bull's-eye, or pretty darn near to it, at the very least. There still seemed to be a barrier between the two of them however, as neither of them could actually start a dialog with the other. It was rather disconcerting, truth be told. _"Even talking to Soma is easier when he doesn't shoo you off... gotta do something about it someday soon, least it interferes with our team cohesion and all," _he grimly thought.

He hadn't the slightest clue about Alisa. From what he understood, she apparently went mental during the run-in with Scorpion, which in turn led to her caving in the entrance. The last he heard, she was still in the hospital and in a rather unstable condition, so visitors were still not allowed at the present moment.

As the elevator doors opened at the lobby, he stepped out to see Sakuya, Kota and Soma already assembled, Tsubaki standing in front of them.

"Wait, where's Kama and Sera?" Arashi voiced out the question he had in mind.

"God Eaters Kama and Sera are currently out on a mission," Tsubaki answered in her usual no-nonsense tone. "I'll be counting on the rest of you to convey what I have to say to them."

Arashi only nodded, as he walked over toward Kota, giving a short wave to the gathered unit members. Kota responded in kind, though he quickly lowered his hand - trying to avoid being too lax around Tsubaki, he supposed - while Sakuya simply nodded a little in acknowledgement. Soma was irresponsive.

As he stood at attention, Tsubaki began to speak. "Now, to begin, our medical tests have shown that Alisa is now on the road to recovery. However, seeing that she is still in the hospital, she should not be seeing active combat for a while."

_"Well that's good news I suppose, but why do I get the feeling this isn't the only reason we were called?..." _Arashi thought to himself.

"Also..." Tsubaki started again - was that a slight bit of hesitation he sensed? "As of today, God Eaters Lindow and Kinaia have been designated as Missing in Action/Discharged. That's all."

_"Oh. So that's why." _Arashi grimaced, remembering that Tsubaki and Lindow were siblings. Considering how long it had been, he knew it was coming sooner or later, but that didn't make the news any less acceptable.

"How can that be?" Sakuya questioned Tsubaki, a tinge of desperation in her voice. "We still haven't found their armlets or God Arcs!"

"It's a decision from the top," Tsubaki smoothly replied. "Also, we have confirmed that both the beacon and biometric signals from their armlets have vanished."

_"So that essentially means that their chances of survival are almost, if not already zero?" _Arashi's expression darkened ever so slightly, but otherwise looked the same outwardly.

"Now that attacks by unconfirmed Aragami have intensified," Tsubaki continued, "we can't afford to search for someone who ma or may not be alive."

On a logical scale, it was a perfectly sound reasoning. It wasn't one that could be argued with, or not easily if it were possible. That certainly didn't mean Arashi liked it in the slightest, and as Tsubaki walked off, he largely tuned out his surroundings, only barely registering Soma's own darkened expression, Kota's pained one and Sakuya beginning to say something else as he unceremoniously dropped himself onto the nearby seating, leaning forward as his emotions ran haywire.

_"Darn it all..." _Arashi violently ruffled his hair, resisting the urge to slam his fist into something. _"But of course they'd have ties of some kind. And now because of a nasty mix of indecision, the circumstances AND the higher ups, Lindow and Kinaia are as good as dead if they aren't already..."_ Slowly but surely, the memories of his close ones' deaths slowly started to well up again.

Not even a minute into it though, feeling a few pair of eyes staring at him, he briefly looked up to see Kota, Sakuya and Soma looking at him, then glancing at the unoccupied seats. For that scant moment, the negative thoughts and emotions were pushed aside as one singular thought came to his mind: _"They're not thinking what I think they are, are they?" _

* * *

The answer? They were. Now, the assembled group was sitting around in the lobby, letting the news gnaw at them. So lost in their own thoughts were they, Arashi almost didn't hear someone muttering, "what happened this time..."

"The rescue missions were called off. Lindow and Kinaia are now dead to the Den," he almost yelled, the negative emotions that sought release somewhat dissipating with that release.

"Well, I don't care about what the higher-ups say," the voice that just spoke earlier - Kama, he belatedly realised - said. "I'll still keep an eye out for them on my missions."

As Sakuya stood up to leave, the largest metaphorical storm cloud amongst the group following over her head, Kama decided to take his own leave as well.

"Ah, wait," Arashi spoke a moment too late as Kama vanished from his sight. "I forgot to mention Alisa's condition..."

* * *

The next morning, Arashi felt positively much better, if still somewhat upset by the announcement. _"Come think of it, I kinda snapped at Kama yesterday," _Arashi thought to himself as he slowly ambled toward the elevator. _"Gotta remember to apologise late- oh, speak of the devil." _Indeed, the current subject of his thoughts was standing right there in the elevator, looking at him. "Breakfast?" Arashi ventured a little. It paid off, as Kama gave a slight grin while the elevator descended to the cafeteria.

As they sat in the mostly empty room, silently eating their cereal, Arashi decided to speak up, and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about the other day," he started, "it brought back bad memories, but I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

Kama shook his head, saying, "no worries, you weren't the only one bothered by the decision. Meanwhile, I've been in the mood to let off some steam. Wanna go on a mission?"

_"Why not? It'll probably help deal with more of these negative thoughts," _Arashi thought to himself, giving a wide smile. "Now that's what I'm talking about!"

That had managed to get them rather pumped up, and they promptly devoured their cereal in a jiffy before heading down to Hibari's counter.

"Two Chi-Yous and an unknown Aragami in the mountain areas?" Arashi vocalised his thoughts on one mission a while later, "it looks like a cross between a tiger, a T-Rex and I dunno what else." He continued, looking over the captured images.

Hibari nodded. "According to the reports we've received, these Aragami had attacked a nearby town and fled to the cave systems afterward. The higher ups want these Aragami dealt with before they can strike again."

"Hey, this one looks like a pretty tough one. Shall we?" Kama asked him, a slight grin on his face.

"Hell yes. I'm all fired up!" Arashi boldly declared, raising a fist in the air.

"You know, you sounded like Kota for a moment there," Kama said, the grin growing slightly larger.

"Heh, maybe I've been taking a lesson or two from him," he shrugged, giving his own grin nonetheless.

As they were about to part ways to prepare for the mission though, they were stopped in their tracks by a rather feminine voice calling Kama's name. Arashi turned around to find...

_"Wait, what?" _Arashi thought, stunned as he saw Alisa conversing with Kama. _"But how- Tsubaki said that she shouldn't be combat ready yet! So how on Terra is she?... Argh, headache..."_

"... take it slow, so you don't overwhelm yourself again," he managed to catch Kama saying. Alisa said her thanks and quickly went over to Hibari.

_"Oi, he did not just do that..." _"What the hell, man?!" He quietly whispered to Kama, "Do you want to run the risk of us ending up like Lindow and Kinaia too?"

"She's had her fair share of troubles, same as both of us," Kama quietly responded, "she deserves another chance, as long as she believes she can make up for her mistakes."

"All right..." he said, scoffing a little. While Alisa was, for whatever reason, out of the hospital far earlier than he'd thought she should have been, Kama did have a point. He could only hope things wouldn't go to hell during the mission...

* * *

... unfortunately for him, things indeed went to hell.

The mission was initially fine enough; they'd simply made their way to the mountains, and entered the cave systems. Then they'd reached the core of the mountain. While that in itself wasn't an actual problem to the mission, it was certainly one to him, because dead smack in the centre of the hollowed mountain was one nigh-bottomless expanse. He didn't really know why, but he always had a rather... irrational fear of heights, though he suspected that hearing Aisuru's screams as she got flung off the cliff had possibly worsened it. That the rock Kama had kicked down the expanse hadn't made any echoes when it landed (if it even landed) didn't help, either.

Then came the REAL problem. That one had started as a really deep, guttural and outright feral roar, too feral for Arashi's liking. When they got to the mountain tops, they'd spotted the corpse- scratch that, horribly mutilated corpse of a Chi-You, most probably one of their intended targets. While he didn't inspect the damage up close; Kama did that, it still unnerved him a little bit, though he managed to remain calm. Having made his Wild Sword out of Chi-You materials, he was rather well acquainted with said Aragami, and despite being one of the easier targets out there, he personally thought that its body was one of the hardest things for any God Eater to pierce, sans the Quadriga and Borg Camlann.

_"For something to wreck the Chi-You like this..." _Arashi had grimly thought. While he wasn't letting that deter him, he had to admit, he didn't like their possible odds against the Aragami that devastated the Chi-You like that.

The actual battle with the beast itself was certainly not pretty, either.

They could've prevented getting its attention, or at least he hoped. That hope was shot dead the moment Alisa stepped on the ice shard. Not that he could blame her, anyone else might have done that given how ferocious the tiger-like Aragami appeared to be. Thanks to that however, he soon found himself on the defence as the 'Tiger' consistently tried to charge at him, sometimes trying to strike him with its long tail, claws (which had the nasty side-effect of raking up the ground and launching the debris at him) and even its jaws a couple of times.

_"Seriously?!" _Arashi had mentally winced as the beast hammered his shield with a claw, _"what is this? An Aragami on steroids?"_ It most probably wasn't the case, but it certainly felt like how it would've been like. The 'Tiger' was pretty fast and didn't let up in the slightest... which absolutely sucked.

"Alisa, heal Arashi! Arashi, back up and let me take over! We'll take turns and dodge constantly!" He heard Kama call out amidst the bullfight. He didn't manage to give a verbal response, but complied by quickly throwing himself to the side, letting the 'Tiger' concentrate on Kama instead as Alisa ran over to give him a healing injection.

"Thanks!" Arashi had quickly said, not waiting for a response as his attention was quickly diverted back to Kama and the Tiger as the former attempted to slash the latter's face, although it didn't seem to be letting up. "Well that probably explains how it tore the Chi-Yous up..." he muttered, shielding his eyes as Kama threw a Flash Grenade. For a brief moment, there was a flash of bright light and another of the Tiger's feral roars, and as the light died out, Arashi opened his eyes again, rather pleased with the result of Kama's quick thinking.

The Flash Grenade, while documented to work quite well on enraged Vajras, were usually brief distractions against most Aragami. Against the Tiger however, it somehow seemed to have a more negative reaction to it, as it shook its head rather violently. Not wasting the opportunity, Arashi quickly rushed forward to hack away at the tail, successfully slicing it off in a spray of blood just as he heard a cracking sound coming from the head of the Tiger.

_"Looks like Kama broke through this thing's hard head," _Arashi grinned a little, though it was quickly replaced with a frown as the Aragami thrust itself into the air, flying away from them and toward the way they came from.

"After it! We can't let it escape!" Kama yelled. Arashi certainly didn't need to be told twice as the trio quickly backtracked, just in time to see the Tiger attempt to devour the first Chi-You corpse.

"Well, burn in hell buddy," Arashi mumbled as he fired off one of his experimental cluster rounds, seeing the multi-staged burst impact the Aragami's body. Honestly, he'd hoped he could pack more power into the bullet modules, but at the moment, it succeeded in doing its primary objective this time: catching the Tiger's attention.

_"... okay," _Arashi reconsidered as he saw the Tiger rear up, its veins beginning to glow bright red, _"perhaps it did more than I bargained for!"_ He quickly finished the thought as he covered his ears, wincing as the powerful shockwave generated by the Tiger's incredulously loud roar hit him. As he quickly recovered from the roar however, he was absolutely horrified to see Kama with his back on the ground and his ears bleeding... and the Tiger preparing to charge at him.

"No... freaking way!" Arashi howled as he charged forward at the same time as the beast, quickly shifting his God Arc into its Predator Mode and only barely managing to bite off a chunk of the Tiger's front leg. This caused it to fall over and skid to a stop just in front of Kama as Alisa fired a few healing bullets at them.

_"Thank whatever actual god there is out there for small blessings..." _he mentally sighed in relief as he fired the Aragami Bullets he obtained into Kama to provide a Link Burst, with Alisa following his actions shortly after and transferring the Link Burst to him. "Alright then... die!" He bellowed, rushing forward to clash with the Tiger for what would hopefully be the last time. Arashi jabbed the beast in the face a couple of times, making it flinch a little before it tried to snap at him with its jaws again, to which he responded by bringing up his shield and slamming it into its skull, now actually causing the Tiger to reel back in pain. Arashi grinned, they could win this!

Of course, that's when the Tiger decided enough was enough and drove its claw into the ground again, forcing him to bring up his shield for a moment to brace the impromptu projectiles. As he lowered the shield though, he instantly regretted it as the Tiger smashed its claw directly into him, almost piercing his chest as he coughed up some blood and was slammed into a wall.

From there on out, his consciousness lingered somewhere in between being awake and unconscious, though he vaguely saw the Tiger charging at Alisa and an odd black figure leaping down from above before he blacked out.

* * *

(A few days later.)

**Location: ?**

**Time: ?**

"Urgh..." Arashi groaned, slowly opening his eyes. He'd been made to rest in bed for about a week to let his body recover, and another week for his muscles to fully repair from the damage the Tiger had done to him. "Where- wha?! This isn't my room!" He cried out, realising he was looking at the sky.

Indeed, as he quickly got to his feet (which didn't seem to hurt at all, he noticed), he found himself in an extremely wide, arena-like barren area, the moon shining in the sky with dark clouds hovering over him. The ground itself was devoid of any form of life, himself discounted, and had a series of white coloured 'veins' - ice? - running through some of it. A few other patches of the flat rocky ground had the ice bordering what could have been small pools - were the centres of the frozen pools actually blood red?! And bordering the area itself, massive clusters of stone spikes rose from the ground, sealing off all forms of exit.

**"Young one," **he heard a male voice call out behind him. It sounded positively... ancient, wizen and... powerful. **"Answer me this: for what reason do you put your life on the line?" **Turning around, Arashi was treated to a sight that almost made his jaw drop.

Standing before him on fours, was arguably a most magnificent beast - a dragon, he supposed - if only in aesthetics. Most of its body was covered in a slivery grey carapace, white spikes shooting out from majority of these parts toward the dragon's back, whilst the rest of its body was similarly covered by a crimson carapace, minus the same spikes. Its leathery wings had a queer red symbol emblazoned on them, and its tri-pronged tail was completely covered in the silvery carapace at the tip. Most awe-inspiring of all though, were the large crest it had on its chest, blue veins running across it with the tips of the jutting-out portion of the crest coloured in a dazzling light blue. Its head, largely comprising of the silvery carapace, had a small 'beard' of sorts, coloured similarly to the crest tips, and an imposing, but beautiful silver horn. And right now, its yellow draconic eyes were looking at him in the eye, as if it were looking into his soul.

"Who... or what are you?" Arashi softly asked, still breath taken by the beast before him.

**"I ask again," **the dragon said - how did it speak without moving its mouth, he wondered, **"for what reason do you fight? What is the reason for your existence?"**

_"So it wants to know why I fight, huh?" _Arashi mused, then spoke out loud. "I fight to uphold the vow I made with my friends 7 years ago - to make sure the Aragami pay for their transgressions, and to ensure that no one else has to know the pain we felt."

The dragon's posture shifted a little, its eyes showing what appeared to be... disappointment?

**"Your act of keeping to your word is commendable,"** it conceded, **"but that is not your true Answer."**

"Wait, what?!" Arashi retorted.

**"Until you find your Answer," **the dragon continued as Arashi's vision began to darken, **"You are not worthy of knowing my identity. The next we meet, may it be when you have found it."**

"Hey, wait!" He cried out, as darkness took him again.

* * *

AN (after): Featuring the mysterious dragon! Just who, or what is it, and what the heck is it talking about? Stay tuned!

Update: It's come to my attention that the pace of this fic is a tad fast, so expect the next update to be something to make the pacing flow a bit better...


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